Got tha hookup- Kenwood MP3 in my J30

[bantoine2]

Hello everyone, its been over a year since I posted on the forum. I have a Black 94 J30t which I haven't done anything in over a year. Only customization I had was 20inch wheels on it that I no longer have (sold them for the money). I now have the OE 18" q45 wheels and it looks okay.

Now I finally hooked up the audio. Went out and spent $1100 even. I bought a MP3 Kenwood Double Din, Hiphonics 2 10" subs in a enclosed box- I think its called a banbass box, and an expensive 800 watt amp- i forgot the name.

Sounds okay but trunk rattles...must be too much bass although i dont care for alot of bass but I do want some to give it a nice bumpin sound. What I probably should have NOT done is kept my factory bose speakers along with the new system. Everything sounds good but they seem to crack when I turn it up a bit. Anyone know a good mid/high/low speakers to get. I might exchange the bose factory speakers out so I get everything sounding clear. I was very suprised that they got the factory speakers to still work with my new deck even without an adapter.

What was reall impressive I got all this installed in about 2hours.New deck, 2 subs in a box and amp mounted on the subs.

Any suggestions to make the audio sound better or other options.I'm always open to suggestions.

Anyone else upgrade their factory j30/q45 decks??

[maxnix]

Yeah, ditch the MP3. It's an inferior encoding format.

Well, you asked.

[Jberger]

Nah, properly encoded MP3's are fine in the car, too much ambient noise to really have good sound anyway. OGG really sounds great and if they ever perfect the ability to convert them to lowerbandwidth on the fly, it will really be something.

I'm in the process of converting my collection to hard drive. The server is ready and I've been testing the various formats and so far EAC and OGG are leading the pack. I want to convert them in to something lossless and then downconvert for the car/portables.

I can't stand listening to MP3's on a good home system, but they are perfect for the car or walkman.

[maxnix]

To paraphrase the former President, if you can fool most of the people most of the time, that's usually good enough.

With the XA-10B carrier, I can load ten CDs for 13+ hours of music per carrier when I record the Cds myself. With 3 carriers, that's 40 hrs, enough for cross country drives like I did this spring.

Of course, all three carriers represent only 21gb of storage, so a desktop hard drive once loaded, even in cda format, could hold a lot more. Maybe current server hot-swap drive technology could be used to trade them out like CDs, which would certainly make them a lot easier to edit. Serial ATA might help with the connections (lower data loss for longer interconnect length) as I can't imagine running a SCSI system in a car, although I am certain someone has.

I am surprised no one is producing a car with a 42V system yet (36V battery). Not even the new Maybachs, nor the relaunched Rolls and Bentleys have them as far as I am aware. I imagine this is due to supplier inertia and the cost of retooling to a new standard. The efficiency gains for electrically driven PS, Brakes, AC compressors, cabin controls etc. would net another real (I would guess) 5%-8% HP at the flywheel.

I wonder if the new Acura 4 door will be the first with a high voltage system since it will have motors to assist the rear wheels for performance bursts? I wonder if the redesigned Q and M in two years will incorporate it?

[Q45tech]

Open [so you can hear horns] Quality tiny headphones for driver and passengers sure beats spending big on speakers and amps and the sound doesn't depend on interiors and reflections............no rattles except inside heads.Make sure everyone has their own volume control.

[maxnix]

As usual, Dennis is correct. The accuracy will be much greater with a low distortion amplifier driving some high end open headphones.

Unfortunately, a lot of states, to protect us from ourselves, outlawed driving with headphones. I assume for the passengers it is still OK. Sure eliminates all the speaker variables of placement and the significant effects on frequency response when the acoustic environment changes radically by passengers either being, or not being, in the car.

[Eswift]

lets see a pic of the stereo install as well as the OEM 18 inch Q45 wheels!....i was thinking of these wheels for my J30....what is the weight per wheel?

[bantoine2]

Picture of my car is on the yahoo J30 Infiniti club. It's in the BRUCE'S folder. I will post pics of stereo install later in the week.

[bantoine2]

what's up with the DRIVING MOM'S CAR under my name?? My moms car sucks although I think the 92/93 Nissan Pathfinders were the best Pathfinders ever made.

[VimyJ]

what's up with the DRIVING MOM'S CAR under my name?? My moms car sucks although I think the 92/93 Nissan Pathfinders were the best Pathfinders ever made.

Don't worry. Keep posting and you'll soon have a nice shiny set of hubcaps.

[Q451990]

I installed the NEO jukebox MP3 Player in "Q2" and I have to say it sounds really good... it all depends on the bitrate you use to record the CDs. I used a very high one (which cuts down on the storage capability) but I should still be able to get about 300 CDs on the hard drive. Since I only own 150 or so, I have a long way to go!

Heath

[bantoine2]

Well, after going back and forth to the car audio place tweeking my ssytem I had to drop my factory speakers...which I knew I was going to do sooner or later.

I'm now in the whole a total of around 2900 total for my new audio. I also got an alarm that will start my car as well....called the Viper I think.

Basically I only kept my deck on changed everything else out. My mids/highs I'm getting Focal speakers. 5.25 on the doors and 6x9 in the back. My subs are Rockford Fosgate 2 10" subs in a enclosed box that can hit 1000 watts. I have now two amps...one 1000 DIGITAL watt amp for the subs and another rockford amp for the mids/highs. Last thing I will be getting is a custom box with the amps on the sides of the trunk.

Damn, I sure hope it sounds good...or else I'll be committing suicide. Well you live once..early xmas gift for myself

[Sopdadope]

Bantoine,

I don't wanna sound like a jerk, but you're gonna need better amps than the RF to power those Focals. In my experience with RF amps, they produce a very dirty and distorted sound and for Focals, you'll need a very high-end amp. Nice choice for the speakers though, Focals, especially the Utopias, are about the best you can get.

[EWT]

I am surprised no one is producing a car with a 42V system yet (36V battery). Not even the new Maybachs, nor the relaunched Rolls and Bentleys have them as far as I am aware. I imagine this is due to supplier inertia and the cost of retooling to a new standard. The efficiency gains for electrically driven PS, Brakes, AC compressors, cabin controls etc. would net another real (I would guess) 5%-8% HP at the flywheel.

Car and Driver had an article about this in the last month or two. Evidently, there were a lot more technical hurdles to converting to a higher voltage than expected. I forget all the details, but things like 42V light bulb filiments were a lot more fragile than 14V filiments, and the end result was that cars will probably end up with a dual voltage system with some stuff running off 14V and some things running off 42V. It didn't sound like 42V was going to see widespread adoption in the near future.

[bantoine2]

Bantoine,

I don't wanna sound like a jerk, but you're gonna need better amps than the RF to power those Focals. In my experience with RF amps, they produce a very dirty and distorted sound and for Focals, you'll need a very high-end amp. Nice choice for the speakers though, Focals, especially the Utopias, are about the best you can get.

The two amps I got are RF 550x and for the bd1000 (ALL DIGITAL)

Yes, they do push the focals and then some. It has no distortion whatsoever and everything sounds clean and sharp. I did receive compliments from the sound and they even impressed themselves. Only thing left is the custom box in the seats. I might add one more 10" but that damn thing kicks so much bass it's ridiculous. They are only charging $350 for the custom box but it's gonna take at least three days. Thanks for your adise. I love constructive criticisim